Nazaroo

Its amusing to note who you are posting as authorities for your own stance:

The first is a site abandoned by its own author last March:
who appears to be a vague Baptist with ecumenical tendencies, and who believes in a literal Satan and demons:
The other link is perhaps even more hysterical, as this California-based group believes in shaving hairs over Calvinism so thin that virtually only his own church and its doctrines represent "A True Church".

Way to go. Smoking rebuttal.

Diogenes the Cynic

You're moving the goal posts here from "a majority of Protestants" to "fundamentalist Protestants." You also implied that Bruce Metzger was somehow "lying" about his professed denomination (which included an ordained clergyship). He was not a fundamentalist but that is hardly a criterion for being a Protestant, and a lack of fundamentalist, inerrantist dogamatism is pretty much a requirement to be able to engage in any serious critical method. Honest scientific inquiry necessarily precludes dogmatic assumptions about the text. Your "critiques" of Metzger and others seem to me to be rather more ad hominem than anything else.

Toto

A few posts have been split off here and locked, as being totally outside the title of this thread and just a little too personal and graphic for this forum: Catholic conpsiracies

hatsoff

That there is no other example of a "floating logion" doesn't negate the undeniable fact that the PA *is* one. The mss. evidence proves it. It is beyond denial. The only question is, why?

Perhaps so, but that does not negate the fact that this strange phenomenon requires an explanation which ties into the history of the texts.

That is a good point to consider, but it does not somehow trump or render meaningless the variant mss. A much better explanation is that as the PA grew more well-known, the copyists attempted to correct what they saw as an error. This would be expected to have happened much later than its original incorporation.

And it is. But not the way you'd like.

No, it places the PA *usually* between John 7:52 (not 53, by the way) and 8:12, during the 10th or so and later centuries--not "firmly" at all.

It sounds to me like you're too personally invested in the issue. Take a step back and re-evaluate the evidence. You obviously know a lot about it, but your opinions are very warped. Perhaps you're like most people, and get excited by a good conspiracy. If that is the case, it is important to remember that, while romantic, conspiracy theories are almost never close to the truth. Or perhaps you're just too wedded to KJV-onlyism, in which case your bias is purely religious, and thus probably beyond overcoming. But whatever the case, though you have come up with some original ideas, efforts which are worthwhile and should be encouraged, they are, I regret to say, faulty. You really need to go over everything again.

Nazaroo

Keep in mind that I said a majority of Protestants *would* reject the UBS text etc.

This is hypothetical statement of opinion, not a moving of the goalpost.

It is also untestable without significant funding, but that does not make it an unreasonable thought-experiment, which you may express your own opinion about in regards to the result of such an experiment.

I will sustain my opinion on this, and insist that this possibility is of interest and is relevant to an assessment of the UBS text.

Ignoring political manipulations behind the scenes in the affairs of men is not a scientific approach. If there is motive and directed activity, it would be futile to try to attribute everything that happens as due to 'chance' or mere stupidity, as tempting as that is.


Agreed. I could have been more specific about the flavour of Protestantism I consider fundamental to its core definition.

Agreed. In all my critiques of NT textual critics online, I have not argued against an open-minded approach and a skeptical methodology, which I consider fundamental to scientific inquiry.

All of my attacks have been based upon two issues:

(1) The actual historical and scientific facts of the case, and the quality of the reasoning and arguments presented.

(2) The honesty and integrity of the apologists for either side in any position, and the question of conflict of interest, bias, or a hidden agenda.

These are both equally important in political investigations (which this is), whether or not they are 'politically correct' questions to ask in polite academic circles.

I suggest you enjoy the wit or lack of it in my ironic expression and humour and separate that from the data which conflicts with Metzger's claims.

I have a certain style and manner of writing which may either irritate or amuse, but the important part of any critique is the new information brought to light on the question, which has been overlooked or ignored.

The meat of my critique of Metzger and others is the data and logical argumentation that they are unaware of or ignore.

If the humour elements distract you, I suggest you ignore those.

jgibson000

My "stance" on what?

Is what the first site says about Cloud untrue?

And you seem to equate "abandoned" (which is not what he did, is it?) with "repudiated". Nice equivocation.

I'm not sure how any of this, especially the last point, calls into question the truth of what the author says about Cloud and Cloud's beliefs. And if a belief in a literal Satan and Demons makes dubious what someone says, then so much for what Cloud and your "committed Protestants" say about the UBS text and the committee heads. For a literal Satan and demons is something Cloud most certainly believes in, doesn't he? And it is certainly part of the "affirmed doctrine" of the "committed" Protestants you appeal to to support your views on the UBS, isn't it?

So .. .they are therefore not "committed" Protestants? If so, on what grounds?

And how is what they do any different from what Cloud does when he says that his church and his doctrines represent the true Church or, significantly, from when you say that if any Protestant does not believe what your "committed" Protestants believe, he or she is no Protestant?

Thanks!

It is certainly far better than your equivocations and red herrings.

JG

Nazaroo

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this. The problem is, as I have tried to state clearly, that the passage only seems to have 'floated' between 1000 A.D. and 1500 A.D., leaving out the entire first millenium of hand-copying.

We agree that it 'floated' in a few MSS (less than 50) at the tail end of the age of hand-copying. But this was at a time when we have direct knowledge of thousands of contemporary MSS that place it in its standard position.


Let's try to account for it right now. What we have is a handful of MSS which misplace the verses. This seems to indicate they were made from copies which simply lacked the verses. The verses of the PA in these MSS, when examined, for the most part reflect not the standard text, but the Lectionary version of the text.

This indicates that the passage was copied from the Lectionary tradition into the part of the MSS tradition which lacked the verses.

This action itself seems to indicate that the scribes who inserted the passage did not have copies at hand which had the correct version of the verses in place, so they improvised. (This would also reasonably account for minor errors in its placement in John, or its appending to the end of John).

There may be several motives involved in doing this, but plainly one motive was to preserve the verses of the PA somewhere.

Secondly, there may be a motive detectable in the copying of the MSS without the verses in the first place. It may be that this version of the gospels was all they had. That is the most probable explanation for insertion from the Lectionary tradition.

But it is also possible that there was some interest in preserving the actual text of those MSS which omitted the verses. In this case, the insertion of the PA from the Lectionary tradition may have been a deliberate choice, not a 'forced' circumstance. (They may have had good copies with the PA, but still chose to reproduce these other copies.)

In any case, the result is the preservation of copies of another text that originally omitted the verses, which is fortunate for us. For this gives us a clear picture of the type of text(s) which omitted the PA, and were in circulation between the 9th and 15th centuries.

And this group of texts (e.g. Family 13, Family 1) shows a text that is definitely a 'Lectionary' influenced text in many other places. That is, this text which lacked the verses seems to have been made up from copying out of early Lectionaries in the first place.

If so, the explanation for the omission in these later Medieval texts may simply be traced to poorer churchs relying upon Lectionary texts to reconstruct the text for their Gospel copies.

Or, it may reflect the activity of someone or some group concerned to preserve these early lectionary texts or early text-types in some form, preventing them from falling into oblivion or being assimilated to the dominant text.

In either case, we have very plausible and understandable motives and mechanisms to account for the late 'floating' effect.

There is no need, nor any evidence to support a history of a 'floating' PA earlier than the 8th or 9th century. All the earlier evidence either points to its origin or insertion at John 7:52/8:12, or its existance independantly outside the Gospel tradition entirely.

Except as we can see, the MSS evidence speaks against a gradual acceptance and entry into the MSS stream this late (1000-1500 A.D.).

If this were the case, the earlier MSS (9th -11th cent.) would omit the passage, while the later MSS (12th - 15th cent.) would contain it.

But there is no such split, or gradual development observable in the MSS base for the entire period from 1000 A.D. to 1500 A.D.

The PA dominates the MSS by 95% or better throughout the entire period.

The handful of peculiar documents inserting the PA elsewhere are a tiny quirk, which seem to have been created in obscure places where good copies simply were not available, and the text was not well known.

The MSS situation for the centuries between 400 A.D. and 900 A.D. isn't much better than for earlier centuries. The fact is, we know that thousands of MSS were produced in every century after the 4th, but none of those MSS can be found, except a handful.

In contrast, there are probably many more Latin MSS than Greek for this period, since Greek was fading as a Lingua Franca, and Latin was becoming dominant.

When we look at the Latin MSS (mostly the Vulgate), it is clear that the PA was accepted at its traditional place between John 7:52 and 8:12 throughout this period. This Latin tradition represents the majority of the church within the Holy Roman Empire.


Try to Picture it:

It may help to actually picture what the MSS say was actually going on.

For every scribe in some out-of-the-way monastery or underground church copying a defective text and inserting the PA from a Lectionary, sometimes in the wrong place, there were simultaneously over 100 scribes working with uniformly standard copies of John that had the PA between 7:52 and 8:12. These other scribes represent the true state of knowledge or belief about the PA and its acceptable position for the entire period between 1000 A.D. and 1500.

Its these scribes that need to be accounted for, not the handful of unknown copyists for Family 13 or the others.

How great a percentage of MSS does a reading have to be in, in a given age, to be 'firm'? Why isn't 95% of all extant MSS enough to call a position 'firm'?

Well, I'm waiting to see any convincing evidence or argument that would settle the issue one way or another.

My position is really not so much in stone, but that the evidence presented so far "against" the passage is so naive, lame and childish that I have to call it, and demand a second opinion.


Well, its easy to slag your opponents with accusations of bias, but where is the evidence?

And more importantly, why are you in particular (Hatsoff) stooping to this technique?

If you really think the case against authenticity is strong, show it. Don't waste time with this.

Again, 'faulty' is easy to say, but entirely different to demonstrate via evidence, logic, argument and debate.

If my position is faulty, show it. Maybe its *you* who needs to go over everything again.

Gamera

From a post by Vinnie on another thread. Is this reference by Eusebius relevant to the pericope?

Roller

Yes. From what I can see, however, it is questionable if parts of that sentence were what Papias actually said, or what Eusebius concluded (thought) Papias said.

Nazaroo

Well, the apparent evidence from Papias through the hand of Eusebius is one of many difficult parts of the problem.

Frankly, this evidence is ambiguous, with many scholars asserting that it refers to an entirely different story, and others asserting that it refers to the PA.

We will at some point go over this evidence in detail, along with some current opinion on its interpretation and value.

My personal view at the moment is that it is likely to be a piece of early tradition that has been garbled by Eusebius (possibly deliberately), and it can only be adequately assessed when Eusebius and his own agenda is better understood.